1.10.09

I love the northwest florida daily news. It's based in ft. walton where i was born. i highly recommend it. Almost anything is newsworthy. here are a few recent stories.

‘Richard from the sea' arrested; identity unknown
Comments 36 | Recommend 2
January 7, 2009 - 7:35 AM
Andrew Gant
Daily News

OKALOOSA ISLAND - A man known only as "Richard from the sea" was arrested outside the El Matador condos after deputies couldn't figure out his true identity.

Listed on his arrest report as John Doe, the man is charged with trespassing after a warning and resisting an officer without violence.

El Matador security wanted him to leave, but he refused. When a deputy asked the man's name, he replied it was "Richard," according to his arrest report. When pressed for more details, he said, "My whole name is Richard and that's it."

Later, questioned in the back seat of a patrol car, he said "I'm Richard from the sea and I get all of my information from the sky."

Richard refused to have his photograph taken or any of his fingerprints scanned at booking. He was listed as white, 5 feet, 9 inches tall and 185 pounds with blond hair and blue eyes. No age was listed.

FORT WALTON BEACH - A neighbor called police when a woman dumped chicken and rice into a dropped shoe, an Okaloosa County sheriff's deputy says.

The 41-year-old woman faces a misdemeanor count of criminal mischief. Jermaine Scott, the deputy who wrote her up, was at the scene investigating a separate dispute between the pair.

He said the defendant was taking a container of chicken and rice to her trash can on Sunset Boulevard when she decided instead to dump it into her neighbor's shoe.

The shoe was near the trash can because moments earlier, the victim had dropped it from a roof, Scott said.

The pair of shoes was valued at $30.

8.1.07

A mind that is stretched to a new idea never returns to it's original dimension.
-oliver wendell holmes

7.29.08

I found out last night that a friend of mine grew up in harlen county, kentucky. my jaw dropped. I learned of Harlen County through the canadian photo magazine "vice" where these canadian photographers went into the hills of kentucky to interview impoverished coal miners, their families, and people in the community. it's fucking crazy how low the standard of living is there, and how the coal companies totally screw these people. The coal miners of harlen county have been going on strike since the 30's. A union organizer, his wife, and his baby girl were assasinated by the coal company. many people were shot and killed by local police.

There was a documentary made in the 70's called "harlen county usa" and it won an academy award. you can rent it from netflix i think. this movie is extremely intense. i watched it last night and once again, i'm shocked to learn of yet another injustice that is within the U.S. here's a little youtube snipet.

5.20.08

trust me: i really don't want to sound like an arty douche, but i'm being real here.
i was thinking the other day that art is the craft of communicating the internal. to make tangible what is intangible. nothing is more frustrating for me than to not be able to articulate something that i am feeling. i'm sure it happens to everyone in some way or another. what is infinitely more frustrating for me is my inability, at times, to even articulate something to myself...to feel a mysterious pull or friction in myself and i can't put my finger on it at all. sometimes i think it's just the frustration of being integrated into a societal structure, being saddled with duties. i just want to run around like an antelope. i'm sure they have shit they have to deal with too. i like to listen to all kinds of music and i love lyrics mostly. i like to hear other people share about their perspective and to relate to it. it's nice to know that all humans are basically the same, and we can share many sentiments with each other.

my songs are usually a way that i blow off steam, and i've done it so long, that it's a permanent coping mechanism for my life. that is why i continue to do it long after it makes no practical sense to keep doing it. my songs tend to have a negative edge to them. I'm often really happy in life, but when i'm happy, i'm off riding my bike or at the beach, i only write when i have something eating at me. when i'm content, i don't want to play guitar.

here are some of my favorite lyrics from other people right now.

"embracing the situation, is our only chance to be free"- jeff tweedy

"when you tell a lie, do you look in the mirror and see it in your eye? who do you fool with the things that you hide? is it for your sake or mine? will you pick another town, pack up and leave when you burn your bridges down until the point where you're sleeping on the ground and the whole world is out of your reach?"- dr. dog

"my old man lived on the run, he's the moon, i'm the sun. we don't belong to love, we both belong to the sky"- dr.dog

"shoulder to shoulder, like two stones in a bag. did you rub one another till' there was nothing but dust?"- mojave 3

4.17.08

well, it's nice to be playing with people again. things are sounding great thanks to alex, david, ryan, and our new friend ryan who will be playing percussion and keys. things are coming along freakishly fast. it's unusual because when i was younger it would literally take months upon months to get a band to the point that it sounded solid, i guess all those years of playing music have paid off. it's very exciting for me to be working on a record with people, and my hope is that we can capture the musical chemistry that is emerging between us. for the first time in years we'll be going into a "real" studio to record drum tracks.

i'm thinking about doing a solo train tour. amtrack sells these amtrak rail passes that basically you can ride anywhere that amtrak goes. so i'll be rolling up in a train to the shows and the promoters can pick me up. i want to play peoples living rooms, or picnics. really i just want to travel around the country and see some old and new faces. laugh, drink, explore.

i heard about a woman the other day who was getting a liver transplant, and they could'nt figure out her DNA. She had 2 distinctly different strands of dna code in her body. what they eventually figured out is that when she was conceived she was going to be a siamese twin. two eggs were fertilized, but as the zygote developed one of the eggs engulfed the other and she was born as a singular person. some of her organs belong to one DNA, and the rest of her organs belong to another.

2.20.08

Well, i have alot of news in this blog post. I'll start with news that is in the forefront of my thoughts. Last week i was diagnosed as a dibetic. I've been super dehydrated and i'd lost 20 pounds in under a week. My vision was blurry and i've been very fatigued. I went through a short period of trying to diagnose myself before i went to the doctor. I thought i had a mold-induced sickness. i thought i may have a parisitic infection or a strange flu. The doctor i saw pretty much knew right away that i was diabetic. For those of you who don't know what dibetes is, it's basically has to do with your pancreas not making enough insulin, which regulates your blood sugar. I may be able to get away with taking an oral medication, or i might have to take shots of insulin. In the long run this will probably make me live longer. I can't drink beer, cokes, or eat sugary or starchy foods. I am comforted by the fact that there are millions of people diagnosed with this disease, and are living long healthy lives. dibetes is extremly treatable.

In other news, the studio is coming along nicely. My isolation room is mostly done. I have some interior work to do on it. Also, i built a mini-kitchen for the studio with a small coffee bar and fridge. I installed some more bookshelves and a coat rack.

Me and alex have been working on some new songs together. we're getting ready for a live on-air performance on KEXP along with and interview. Also, i posted a new demo on the myspace page. hope you enjoy!

12.8.07

I watched a movie called "elegy of a voyage" last night. A character from the movie was a german man, who visited the U.S. and was wrongfully arrested here. He was stripped of his rights and humiliated. After a short period of time, the authorities realized their mistake and released him. He was very angry and after being released from prison returned to germany and became a hermit for like 8 months. He realized in his malaise that the only thing that could restore his life was love. To reach out to people and forgive. He also said he'd like to change god's name to love. which i thought was interesting.

After that i watched a "george harrison" dvd, which has all of his videos from the last 20 years. I did'nt realize he sang the song ".....i got my mind set on you!". Anyway, there is about 1 hour of interview clips with george harrison, where he mostly rambles about love being the greastest thing that we can hope to achieve. And love being the "creative force" which is of god. These were such great things to hear this week, as i was sort of lashing out a bit, on account of my own decisions.

11.26.07

I've been writing for a while, so i got a bunch of new songs. pretty simple songs i've written on a classical guitar. who knows what they'll sound like with a band, but in january i'll start working with tim on arranging them in a "rock" format for the new discover america record. i met with jason mcgerr last week about recording drum tracks at his new drum studio. jason plays drums for the underground indie band "death cab", you probably have not heard of them. but he's got like 15 vintage drums kits just laying around, and i think tim might poop himself upon seeing this.

i've been thinking of making a trip to crater lake in oregon. it's at the top of an old volcano, and it's said to be a surreal experience. The waters will transfix you. here's a pic.

10.12.07

Things are moving along with the studio. I finished painting the walls, and it's much more cozy and inviting. This week i began construction of the isolation booth. it's a pentagonal-shaped room big enough for drums, but i can track guitar amps there as well as organ, vocals, etc. Here the floor is being framed up with 2x6's. The room will be mounted on rubber shock absorbers, to keep vibrations from traveling into the rigid structures of the building.

Here is a small ampbox i made last year. it's constucted from 3/4 inch birch plywood (this shit is heavy). the inside is lined with 2" acoustic fiberglass. I can fit a small combo amp inside, like the blues Jr. above and crank the bejesus out of it.

Here is my new computer that i am very much pleased with. there is a man's head on the left, and a cougar skull on the right. I don't know why.

Lastly, here is a painting i that i love. I think this guy is trying to connect with his granddaughter by taking her on his fishing boat. What he does'nt realize that she is totally freaked out, and not enjoying their time together. classic generation gap. why would someone paint this?

10.3.07

The weather is getting shitty here. It's kind of a big deal, this changing of seasons. especially after such a long and warm summer. The dark overcastness kind of makes everything look different, which is kind of a nice change. I'm kind of stoked about spending the next few months in my new recording space. I found a nice artspace in my favorite town of ballard, that i am slowly converting into a studio space. The building is a historic brick building that many years ago was a department store called "kress department store". I'll be making music where 50 years ago people were shopping for sweatpants and houswares. it's a nice location. a block from a fitness center, movie theatre, record store, and a puerto rican resteraunt.

Today i worked on the entry door, installing some weather striping and a threshold below the door, to limit noise leaving and entering the studio. I'm also in the planing phases of builing an all-purpose isolation booth for guitar, drums, vocals, etc. it's going to kind of look like this: booth

Other than that just working on a few more tunes. Tim might be coming around later this year to make some music together. Other than that i saw this movie called "zeitgeist" the other night and it kind of blew my mind. you can watch it on google video for free. I must warn you it's kind of religiously offensive, but there is a really great segment about origins of religious symbolism, and how it relates to our calender and our holidays. very very eye-opening. you can watch it here.

7.29.07

On November 30th, 1999 there was scheduled to be a huge World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. This would start a new round of trade talks which was to be a huge step in globalization. The WTO talks were quickly overshadowed by the largest globalization-protest in america. There was an estimated 40,000 people who showed for this. The protest was initiated by a small anarchist group from Eugene, Oregon.

I found some neat YOUTUBE videos from the protest. Here is one of them.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SX35re580ew

7.24.07

i've been working on a bunch of new songs for a solo record and it's going well. i bought a new classical guitar to write on, and i like it. i wasn't totally in love with the tone of it, until i realized it was tuned an entire step down. Now that i've brought the guitar up to it's intended pitch, it sounds incredible. The best part is that i only paid 200 bones for it.

I've been wanting to use really thick reverb on vocals for a long time, but i could'nt get the reverb to be dark enough. I've always had a problem with the SSSSS's in my voice. If i'm going for that huge vocal reverb sound, i'd always hear the SSSSS's reverberating and it sounds very cheap and digital. So basically what i do now is after i record a vocal track, i create a duplicate of that track. So i have 2 tracks of exactly the same vocal. i take the 2nd vocal track and turn the hi's way down. I add reverb to that track only. I leave the first track dry(no reverd)That way, you hear the presence and clarity of the original track, and the only thing that is reverberated is the warmth of the voice.

7.13.07

I just got home from tour, and i'm totally exausted. i wish i would have kept a better journal on this tour. It's impossible to encapsulate all that happened on this tour, so i've decided to make some lists of notable experiences. One list for the high points and one for low points.

High Points:

1. Playing Abeliene and making some new great friends(Dustin, Grant) seeing some old ones(Dax) and getting a bunch of free books(Thanks Grant).
2. Beach Days(virginia beach, turkey creek, and destin florida)
3. Camping trip with james monaco, making hot dogs, making smores and making bad jokes.
4. Meeting the incredibly generous multi-millionaire Paige Jenkins, who later invited all 12 of us to stay at her house and throwing a lavish pool party that lasted until 6 in the morining.
5. The pickel Barrel (http://local.yahoo.com/details?id=14961886)
6. Sick dance party in coby's garage in rural central Ohio.
7. Watching White Cross at cornerstone. "All the People! In the City! living in Sin! Such a PITY!!!"

Low Points:

1. Held up at gun point in kansas city, infinitely sucked, but hey...no gunshot wounds.
2. Upon arriving at a party in denton texas, saw a young man get ferociously stabbed in the stomach. We promptly left with no idea of why it happened and if he survived.
3. Axle on the trailer broke, and the tires of the trailer squeeled and smoked in the wheel wells of our rented Uhaul. Subsequently we got free hotel rooms from Uhaul on account of renting us a 1970's rusted peice of shit. So it was a low point, with a high point resolution.
4. Air Conditioning in the van broke.

So that's 7 good, and 4 bad. Not bad at all.

Thanks to state bird, and to the winston Jazz routine. I hope i get to tour with these bands again. great players and great guys.

kansas city 6.27.07

Today was about the craziest day i've ever had in my life. We had a day off in kansas city, and stayed at the house of our new friend seth. The neighborhood was a little questionable(read: ghetto). He was a friend of The Record Machine(local indie label)and graciously opened up his home. Me and Ryan(state bird) were sitting on the porch around 5:30pm checking our email when 2 young men who looked about 17 approached the house. They were acting very suspiciously, and asking us if the house was for sale. I was feeling a little uneasy, and was delighted to see nathan and ryan(winston jazz) pull up to the house. Just when nathan and ryan were coming up the steps, one of young men pulls and gun out of his pants and tells us all to get on the ground. Then he instructs us to give him our cash, credit cards, keys to our cars, and our I.D.'s. I whipped out my wallet and threw all the cash on the ground and slipped my wallet back in my pocket, thinking this might appease them. Which really sucked because i had close to $300 in my wallet. I had been keeping my merch money in my wallet for some stupid reason. They did'nt insist on the credit cards and debits cards (thank god) but got all of our driver's liscences for some unknown reason, and all our cash. They got the keys to nathan's moms car which was a brand new Saturn. They asked me to pass over my laptop, i looked the gunman right in the face and said, "it's got all my music on it" in a pleading sort of voice. I guess they were not completely soul-less because they relented and did'nt take the laptop. They got a little spooked and ran away. I thought they were going to steal the car but for some reason they did'nt.

We called the cops and filed a report with them but i don't really expect anything. They said most of the city detectives were busy with a shooting that happened a few hours earlier.

I've had so many random thoughts floating around in my head about what happened today. It's opened a whole world of conjecture about power, violence, my attatchment to material things, law enforcement and social problems. I've got plenty to think about. I suppose the common sentiment among everyone is we're glad we did'nt get shot today.

kansas city 6.26.07

Tonight we played in kansas city at a wonderful country music venue called The Record Bar. I felt out of place there because it's a country bar, and as you might have guessed, people go to a country bar to hear country music. On the bright side: i recieved some complimentary drink tickets and got sufficiently liquored before cramming the entire discover america band into a photo booth for a low-budget photo shoot. Thanks to papa nartan from the record machine for hooking this show up.